1.Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a document generation method and a document generation apparatus that read data from a paper document to generate an electronic document.
2.Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, a technique is proposed in which a user uses a multifunction peripheral having a scanner function to read a paper document to generate an electronic document described in a page description language in a PDF format of Adobe or in an XPS format of Microsoft.
A technique is also known in which a generated electronic document is transmitted to a designated device by e-mail (see, for example, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 09-284448).
A business printer multifunction peripheral with scanner function has a size division transmission function for dividing a scanned electronic document into appropriate sizes when the size of the document is large.
A page division transmission function is also included for generating a separate electronic document for each page of the document to be scanned and transmitting the documents by e-mail.
In the size division transmission, the electronic document is divided without taking the structure of the electronic document into consideration. Therefore, the document cannot be treated as one electronic document unless the receiving user combines all divided data.
On the other hand, in the page division transmission, each page has an independent electronic document format. Therefore, the receiving user can handle the pages as one electronic document.
However, in the page division transmission, table data, such as a spreadsheet, in which a plurality of pages are included in a document to be scanned, is divided into page-by-page separate electronic documents.
In the table data, the data is logically delimited line-by-line, not page-by-page.
Therefore, the user who has received the electronic documents needs to perform a cumbersome operation, such as using spreadsheet software to open the page-by-page electronic documents and moving the lines to reorganize the documents into meaningful line-by-line separate electronic documents.